"Valley of the Dolls" vs "Mommie Dearest" vs "Dynasty"

[ClassyCo]

By mere definition, I think of soap operas (in some shape or form) having degrees of "camp" among them.

DYNASTY

Generically, I suppose DYNASTY could be considered camp. It just messed itself up when it tried to be campy. That never works as they think it should.

THE COLBYS

THE COLBYS was actually a decently well-written show from what I've seen. It had a strong cast and good writing. What I would call campy about the show would be the over-the-top glamour and wealth of the characters.

DALLAS

Yes, DALLAS was very good for many years, but it lost its way after a little while, even before they killed Bobby. Those middle seasons have a good dose of camp in them, especially the "dream" season, and when they tried to "fix" it (or I assume they did) in the later seasons, it just didn't work. Hagman has said numerous times that the producers tried to make DALLAS "like DYNASTY" around the mid-'80s and he wasn't a fan of the glitz.

KNOTS

It was a legitimate melodrama, and some things that could've been camp, actually came off rather nicely. The later seasons have more camp aspects as the stories were stretching and the budgets were getting smaller. Overall, I wouldn't say the show utilized a lot of camp, though. They played up the "us" factor.

FALCON CREST

Of the major night-time soaps from the '80s, I'd say FALCON CREST was the most campy. It used several old Hollywood actors and actresses in running, recurring, or guest roles, and the mere "look" and "style" of the show seemed campy. Strolling through a quick overview of the show's plots, you can also feel the camp in some of them.

 

[Willie Oleson]

that the lack of transitional moments between scenes and timeframes gave it it's clunky feeling, the TV movie flavor, to it.

Surely you're NOT suggesting that this movie got a theatrical release, as in: paying money to be subjected to Mommie Dearest en plein publique ?
Oh my god, the humiliation, THE SHAME!
I always get a lot of sadistic pleasure out of other people's bad movie choices. I wish I could touch that shame, literally wallow my naked body in it or wear it like a fur coat.

 

[TaranofPrydain]

Mommie Dearest has a purplish script, but Faye Dunaway is so astonishing in the leading part that you can't laugh at her (even if the script has some real howlers. I never fail to get a laugh from the "not my first time at the rodeo" line). So the film isn't the best but I didn't find it quite the "campfest' I heard about

Dynasty, I admit I have taken rather straight. Outside of the catfights, I never really laughed at anything. It doesn't have much depth, if any, at times though, but it's fun for what it is.

Valley of the Dolls starts fine (Barbara Parkins and Sharon Tate are actually giving legitimately good performances in this film, as is supporting actress Lee Grant) but the longer it goes on and the more pills are taken, it becomes like a comic cartoon, with certain scenes that are moments of unintentional high comedy. It's a mess but fun.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Dunaway is my favorite post-Old Hollywood actress and she had a helluva good run from '67 to '77. Despite Davis' sour assessment that Dunaway only had a career from roles Fonda turned down, I think Faye was the premier actress of the 70s. The very qualities that made her Camp -- a stylized acting that filtered Method through Old Hollywood glamour -- made her acting look overwrought and out-of-date by the early 80 with the ascendency of Meryl Streep's studied naturalism.

I actually love EYES OF LAURA MARS -- I didn't fully approve of it and its late-'70s fetish-shocker ambiance (a la DRESSED TO KILL, CRUSING, LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR) initially, but EYES mostly works, a period piece of sorts which remains under-rated to this day (which BKR also observes). EYES' main flaw is that you can tell who the culprit is far too early.

But how many films do you get Dietrich and Garbo together?? (Horoscopic reference, lost on normal readers).

Looping this back to the original topic, if not DYNASTY, then which of the 80s soaps came closest to Camp? Some opinions here that THE COLBYS qualified, but I've never seen it. KNOTS seemed to be a legitimate melodrama. DALLAS perhaps came close to Camp in its middle years, but its earlier years were earnestly grounded and its later years were simply bad. FALCON CREST? It's been ages since I've watched it, but my memories would point to it being the closest to Camp.

DYNASTY and FALCON CREST have always had a karmic connection the other show didn't share. Even, to a point, the way in which both disintegrated (although FC was spared the devastating static acting directive that so ruined DYNASTY irrespective of the writing issues). Obviously, FALCON CREST could go further in the gothic-camp direction, because that fit the series' personality (which is why THE COLBYS' flying saucer event would have landed far better on FC).

Some of the things I would have wanted to see during, say, Season 7 of FALCON CREST (e.g., spontaneous human combustion, tainted bottles of chardonnay due to nuclear waste Jacqueline had buried under the vineyard back in the '50s, oversized birds and scorpions crawling out of the nearby Tuscany Valley reservoir suffering from radioactive genetic mutations, brain tumors for Angela's daughters, Melissa refusing to get tested for such tumors believing that she's carrying an alien's baby -- is she crazy or just pretending to be nuts?...) would have perfectly fit into the crescendo of FC's gothicity if properly executed with the correct sense of chutzpah.

Surely you're NOT suggesting that this movie got a theatrical release, as in: paying money to be subjected to Mommie Dearest en plein publique ?
Oh my god, the humiliation, THE SHAME!
I always get a lot of sadistic pleasure out of other people's bad movie choices. I wish I could touch that shame, literally wallow my naked body in it or wear it like a fur coat.

That's brilliant, but I don't know what it means.

 

[TaranofPrydain]

Eyes of Laura mars isn't bad.... It just has too high of a body count, which makes the ending very predictable. i really liked the Streisand song on it.

It also has one great goofy moment that was left in the film even though the actress broke character. In one scene, Dunaway is arranging a photoshoot with burning cars in the background. In the foreground are two models named Lulu and Michelle (Darlanne Fluegel and Lisa Taylor), who we later find out are lesbian lovers. They are made in the photo shoot to look like they are having a major, hair-pulling catfight, but toward the end of the scene, Taylor breaks character and you can hear her say "Darlanne, you didn't have to pull it that hard!"

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Eyes of Laura mars isn't bad.... It just has too high of a body count, which makes the ending very predictable. i really liked the Streisand song on it.

It also has one great goofy moment that was left in the film even though the actress broke character. In one scene, Dunaway is arranging a photoshoot with burning cars in the background. In the foreground are two models named Lulu and Michelle (Darlanne Fluegel and Lisa Taylor), who we later find out are lesbian lovers. They are made in the photo shoot to look like they are having a major, hair-pulling catfight, but toward the end of the scene, Taylor breaks character and you can hear her say "Darlanne, you didn't have to pull it that hard!"

Could clairvoyant Krystle in Season 8 have done this sort of thing -- while running Blake's campaign...?

 

[Crimson]

Looking at Dunaway's filmography, I am reminded that LAURA MARS was made after NETWORK -- so I'll expand my appreciation of Faye's career to '67 to '78. Dunaway in the 70s was like Crawford in the 40s: she could be great in prestige pictures, but was even better in slick trash. Although there are a few minor, obscure films of the era that I haven't seen, I like all of Dunaway's work from this period. The more bonkers the film -- and her performance! -- the better.

Incredible how quickly her career collapsed. I know people (mostly Faye) like to blame MOMMIE DEAREST, but her career was already in dire straights. After winning an Oscar, other than LAURA MARS, she was reduced to supporting Jon Voight and Frank Sinatra to two turkeys. Maybe she should have been less of a neurotic, toxic pain in the ass.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Looking at Dunaway's filmography, I am reminded that LAURA MARS was made after NETWORK -- so I'll expand my appreciation of Faye's career to '67 to '78. Dunaway in the 70s was like Crawford in the 40s: she could be great in prestige pictures, but was even better in slick trash. Although there are a few minor, obscure films of the era that I haven't seen, I like all of Dunaway's work from this period. The more bonkers the film -- and her performance! -- the better.

Incredible how quickly her career collapsed. I know people (mostly Faye) like to blame MOMMIE DEAREST, but her career was already in dire straights. After winning an Oscar, other than LAURA MARS, she was reduced to supporting Jon Voight and Frank Sinatra to two turkeys. Maybe she should have been less of a neurotic, toxic pain in the ass.

Quite.

But part of being a diva -- a true diva -- seems to require being as difficult as possible, even off-camera, and even to the detriment of jobs and career and, certainly, relationships.

The personal sacrifices must be enormous.

So, from that angle, Faye Dunaway (even her last name is a metaphor for "murder") may indeed be The Ultimate Diva of All Time simply because she wants to be The Ultimate Diva of All Time... She knows "danger" is a key element of stardom, and part of that image has to be created away from the camera or the studio or Hollywood. It's been said that Joan Crawford's best role was that of Joan Crawford, and that she probably played Joan Crawford at home alone on her toilet (which is weird, because I do exactly the same thing!)

And while Anne Bancroft might have given a more convincing, deeper impersonation of Crawford (two Scorpio Risings, after all) no one could probably have matched Crawford's meticulous diva's narcissism than Faye Dunaway --- I mean, what do we think Crawford was talking about when she so praised Dunaway in the '60s? Crawford thought she was looking in the mirror, and in many ways she was. (Just look at Crawford in GRAND HOTEL, nearly a decade before Faye was even born, and Joan looks just like the woman who would play her on screen half-a-century later). In fact, Crawford's role most similar to her true self (perhaps even more than QUEEN BEE) was in the NIGHT GALLERY pilot episode entitled "Eyes" -- the original name of the LAURA MARS script a few years later.

The Ultimate Movie Queen and The Ultimate Movie Queen 2.0.

Over on DYNASTY, you have Joan Collins (who was named for Crawford, by the way, just as Bette Midler was named for Davis) you have a mini-diva who has also long-realized that getting people to revile you is the key to immortality. But because that's not entirely natural to Collins, she generates contempt not for her nastiness but for her faking of it, which everybody senses. It works for TV well enough though.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Imagine if Dunaway had been cast as Crawford's daughter in STRAIT-JACKET...

 

[ClassyCo]

Imagine if Dunaway had been cast as Crawford's daughter in STRAIT-JACKET...

That would have been awesome!

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Naturally, the MOMMIE DEAREST/VALLEY OF THE DOLLS camp corner is more Alexis' territory -- at least potentially.

But in order for Krystle to reach her fated apotheotic heights, Season 8 needed her to become a cross between Dunaway in EYES OF LAURA MARS and Ellen Burstyn in RESSURECTION --- a psychic healer with disturbing visions and atypical powers, all stemming from that A-V malformation, just before she leaves Denver and the show.

Is that camp, too? But to me, without this development, Krystle and her existence just had no meaning other than her nicey-nicey doormat status.

It had to happen.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

 

[Laurie Marr]

For me ‘camp’ is an aesthetic category that I would describe as epitomising an excess of form over content.

Excess is its principle expository feature, though.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The problem with Valley Of The Dolls is that it's not camp enough. I rewatched it a few months ago and found it quite boring.

 

[ClassyCo]

 

[Ked]

It was really unfair what they did to Judy Garland. Really, they should have hired her for the purpose of dubbing Helen Lawson's singing.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Thank goodness somebody posted this. I was afraid nobody would.

 

[ClassyCo]

Snark, I post a lot on my phone. Very rarely (if ever) on a computer. My apologies.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Snark, I post a lot on my phone. Very rarely (if ever) on a computer. My apologies.

Well, now I have to watch it twice. There goes my afternoon nap.

 

[ClassyCo]

Well, now I have to watch it twice. There goes my afternoon nap.

I'm at work and won't be getting a nap anyway. I'm here for another five hours.